Paris Trip Day 5 - Versailles

On Sunday April 5th, we set off for Versailles.  I purchased the Versailles passports from the official website at €25 each, the kids were free.  This would give us access to all the palaces including the fountain show in the gardens.  Although the children can enter the palaces for free, they do have to pay to enter the gardens during the musical fountain shows, so we had to pay an extra €7 for each child over 6 years old.

The plan was to leave early enough to arrive at the entrance by 9am in order to beat the crowds.  Unfortunately we missed the train we had planned to catch, and had to wait another 20min at the station for the next train.  The RER to Versailles was full of tourists, there wasn't even a place to sit.   So over 500 tourists poured out of the train and arrived at the palace at the same time as we did, it was around 9:45am at this point.  When we arrived at the palace entrance, there was already a pretty long line of people with tickets waiting to get through security.   The problem was, that there was no one doing crowd control, even though there were security guards and Versailles staff everywhere.  The line was a mess, people didn't know where the end of the line was, so they just kept joining the line wherever they could.  The line kept getting wider instead of longer, so the people who were already in line were getting angry as newcomers tried to bud in.  As the chaos and confusion began to mount, finally one of the security guards decided it was time to intervene and put some order into the line.  He randomly decided how to separate the crowd into thinner  lines, making many tourists angry as they saw themselves all of a sudden much farther from the entrance then before.

We waited close to 2 hours in this crazy line up that never seemed to end.  At least it wasn't raining, but it wasn't that warm and the kids were complaining about the cold.  Fortunately we had brought sandwiches and lots of snacks, so we could keep the kids distracted with food.  We were very disappointed in the Versailles staff who seemed to be doing nothing while all this was going on.  At least there should have been some barriers so that people would no where to go.  I'm sure it's not the first time a large crowd of people have arrived at Versailles at the same time, you would think that they would have been better organized :(

Once we got past the security check point, we made our way into the King's Grand Apartments.  It was crowded inside, but not too difficult to get around.  It's definitely a palace like no other in the world.  Once you see the extravagance and excess that fills each room, it's not hard to imagine why the French Revolution started.  I was really amazed by the paintings on the ceilings.  Why the kings needed to have such ornate ceilings, I don´t know.  I found it kind of annoying to have to tilt my head backwards all the time to admire the ceilings.

As impressive as the main palace is, the gardens are like a whole other world.  Just walking to the Grand Trianon took us almost 40 minutes.  The Grand Trianon is an amazing palace as well and not as busy.  We didn't have time to visit Marie Antoinette's estate because we had to make out way back to the main gardens for the musical fountain show that started at 3:30pm.  We walked around for 1.5 hours, but I think that we only managed to see about a quarter of the gardens.  By 5pm, we decided to call it quits.  If we had a little more time, and if the weather was nicer, I think that it would have been fun to spend a day just visiting the gardens of Versailles.  It is free to enter the gardens as long as it's not during the musical fountain show.

Waiting in the long, long line up.

It is hard to tell where the line begins and ends.



Cole trying to keep warm in line

 

Each room had amazing artwork on the ceilings 

And check out that crown moulding! 

Napoleon's coronation looks impressive here, although the original is in the Louvre.



The Hall of Mirrors

You can tell that Ciara was pretty excited to be in the Hall of Mirrors

The Battle Gallery with huge paintings of the greatest French military victories over the centuries

Ciara was more happy to hug an ornamental bush in the gardens

 

The big hall in the Grand Trianon

The Grand Trianon with its pink marble exterior.

Enceladus, the fallen Titan

Bosquet des Tres Fointaines

Apollo's Bassin

The Orangerie

Overlooking the Bassin de Latone, tapis vert and grand canal

 

Grandparents and Grandkids

Our family in front of the palaces, and finally some sun!

Paris Trip Day 4 - Île de la Cité and Pompidou Centre

My parents thought it would be nice to take a boat trip down the Seine river, so I checked out a bunch companies and booked a Seine river boat tour online through Vedettes du Pont Neuf.  It was €9 per adult and €5 per child for a typical 1 hour trip up and down the Seine river past some of the most famous bridges and monuments.  Fortunately it wasn't raining during our boat cruise, but it wasn't sunny either.  Still, it was a quick and easy way to see a lot of Paris and the kids enjoyed the boat ride.

After we finished our boat trip we headed to the Notre Dame cathedral on l'Île de la Cité.  The crowds had already started to form a long winding line outside the cathedral.  Fortunately the line moved fairly quickly.  We decided not to buy tickets to climb to the top of the cathedral.  Entrance to the cathedral is free, and it was enough for us to just see the inside.  Even though we have visited quite a few cathedrals now, I am still amazed at the work that must have gone into building these churches.  The cathedrals in Europe are so ornate and detailed.  With so many sculptures and paintings, each one is like an art museum.  You just don't see churches like these in Canada.

After Notre Dame, we headed towards the Pompidou Centre.  I figured that the kids would enjoy the Pompidou Centre because it's all modern art and a little strange.  I also read online that there was a children's gallery that made modern art a little more accessible for young children.  Well, we happen to come at a time when they were renovating a big part of the museum, so the entire 4th floor was closed because they were in the middle of a rehanging and the children's gallery was empty.

We did get to see the Jeff Koons exhibit though, and it was pretty interesting.  I think the kids will remember it for awhile.  Just this past week Rylan brought home the Guinness Book of World Records 2014 and found out that Jeff Koons' sculpture Balloon Dog sold for $58.4 million, making it the most expensive sculpture by a living artist.  Rylan was excited to say that he got to see the Balloon Dog sculpture in person.

Even though the 4th floor was closed, there was still quite a lot to see on just the 5th and 6th floors.  Everything was so bizarre and didn't seem to make any sense, but that's what makes modern art so much fun.

The kids have been asking to visit the Eiffel Tower since we arrived in Paris, but since the weather was so bad, we kept putting it off.  It wasn't raining very hard when we left the Pompidou Centre so we decided to pass by the Eiffel Tower on the way back to the apartment.  Well, even in the wind and rain, there was a significant line to get up the tower, so we decided to postpone the Eiffel tower for another day, but we still got a picture.

Waiting for our boat tour to start

Cruising down the Seine

A view of the Eiffel Tower from the boat.

Passing by the Notre Dame Cathedral

Going under a bridge covered with thousands of locks.

So many locks

Grandma and Grandpa don't need a lock to stay together.

In front of Notre Dame Cathedral

Stain glass window inside Notre Dame

Another stain glass window 

More stain glass windows

Centre Pompidou

Jeff Koons'  Balloon Dog

Jeff Koons' Michael Jackson and Bubbles

Going up the escalators in the Pompidou Centre

Another Jeff Koons work of art

Do you get it? I don't get it.

Grey skies and the Eiffel Tower

Paris Trip Day 3 - Cité des Sciences et Industrie

On Friday April 3rd, we decided to split off from my parents.  They went to the Musée d'Orsay and we headed off to The Cité des Sciences et Industrie in Parc de la Villette.  After spending the day at the Louvre, I didn't want to take the kids to another art museum and my parents probably weren't that interested in seeing a science museum.

Again it was raining and cold, which was not such a big deal because we spent most of the day inside the museum.  La Cité des Sciences is actually the biggest science museum in Europe.  We have been to quite a few science museums now with our kids, and this one did not disappoint. There was definitely a lot to see, but a few of the expositions you had to pay extra for, including La Cité des Enfants which is a more hands-on interactive centre.  It looked pretty fun, but I wouldn't pay an extra €7 per child for a 1.5h session.  The regular exhibits are a lot of fun and interactive as well.  One of the highlights was going in a circular room that spins around and then trying to throw foam balls at each other.   Almost every exhibit was explained in French and English but many of the explanations are not simplified for children.  Bob and I had a hard time understanding some of the scientific concepts presented.  You can definitely learn a lot in this place.

We did pay €3 extra to see the planetarium show, which was only in French, you could go all the way back to the main desk and ask for headphones if you wanted to listen in a different language.  We didn't bother, so we watched the show on Dark Matter in French.  Even though I can understand French pretty well, I had a hard time wrapping my head around the concept of Dark Matter.  I'm sure the kids would not have understood much even if it was in English.   All I know is that the universe is very, very big and most of it is dark matter.

Unfortunately we didn't get the chance to really explore Parc de la Villette because it was raining.  We saw some really cool playgrounds there, but they were actually all closed.  A worker there said they would open on April 7th.  I'm not sure if they were closed all winter, or just for maintenance.

La Cité des Sciences was a good rainy day activity.  Plus it was the only place we visited in Paris that wasn't crowded.

Can you spot Rylan?

Cool optical illusion that makes Ciara look like a giant.

Cole found the Earth

Nathan trying to virtually fly a plane.

The Geode outside of the Science museum

Here you can see part of a playground just outside of the museum

Too bad it was closed, The kids were so excited when they saw it.

Another really unique playground in Parc la Villette.  

Paris Trip Day 2 -The Louvre

I lived in Paris with my family from 1984 to 1987 in the Neuilly sur Seine area.  I vaguely recall going to the Louvre, but in any case it has changed a lot in the past 30 years.  For one thing, they have built a whole shopping centre underground between the metro station and the entrance of the Louvre.  The crowds were incredible and of course security was really tight.  We wisely purchased tickets through FNAC http://www.fnactickets.com/ ahead of time and picked them up at the local FNAC that was fortunately only 5 minutes from our apartment.  Those who did not have tickets had to wait in a long line in the cold rain.

One of the nice things about visiting museums in Paris is that kids under the age of 18 are usually free.  I think that it's a great idea, because with 4 children, we would be less inclined to visit museums if we had to pay for our kids.

We started off in the Egypt area, because I knew the kids would be interested in looking at mummies.  I really don't remember the Louvre being so big.  With the crowds, we had to keep an eye on the kids as they could easily be lost for a long, long time.  We spent a good 3 hours roaming around the museum and looking for the most famous works of art.  I'm not sure if the kids were really impressed, but they didn't complain, as there was always something to look at.  Since Rylan, Nathan and Ciara are all into Greek mythology, they tried to spot the Greek gods represented in the art over the centuries.

By 3pm we were pretty hungry, but it was too cold and rainy to walk around and look for a restaurant, so we opted to eat in the Louvre cafeteria, which was almost all out of food.  We purchased a few over-priced snacks to keep the kids happy and then Bob and I decided to take the kids back to the apartment.  Mom and dad stayed in the Louvre to see some more exhibits.  There were entire floors that we didn't even see.  Well, maybe I'll be back in another 30 years and I can finally see the rest of the Louvre!


 Pretty cool chairs in front of FNAC




This is us about to enter the metro near our apartment.  Grandpa thought it would be a good photo op.

 a sphinx

 A wall from an Assyrian Palace

The coronation of Napoleon

 The Venus de Milo

We are not sure who this is, but Ciara thought it was cool.

 

This is about as close as we got to the Mona Lisa.

The Winged Victory of Samothrace in the background

Paris Trip - Day 1

As I mentioned back in January, my parents decided that it would be nice for us to meet them in Paris in the Spring.  So after months of careful preparations my parents landed in Paris on April 1st at around 10am.  They had a few problems getting from the airport to the apartment that we had booked in Boulogne Billancourt.  First of all, Boulogne is just outside of Paris and therefore most airport shuttles will not go there.  My parents had to wait 30min for a shuttle at Charles de Gaule aiport that took them as far as the metro station Charles de Gaule Etoile.  Then they had to haul all their luggage into the metro station and purchase tickets.   I don't know why, but ticket machines are never intuitive.  A very nice young women dressed like a metro employee with name badge and all, offered to help them purchase a ticket.  She suggested they buy a 5 day pass so that they would not have to worry about buying tickets all the time.  Each pass was around €35 so the women kindly bought two passes for them with her credit card and then gave my parents the tickets in exchange for €70 cash.

Tickets in hand, my parents took the metro and made their way to the apartment we had rented.   Well, it was not until the next morning when they attempted to use their metro passes again that they realized that something was wrong.  My mother's pass didn't work.  They checked with the man working at the ticket office and he confirmed that the ticket she had was a one-time child's fare worth €0,70.  It is easy to understand how they could have been tricked.  They had already travelled 14 hours by plane, waited for a shuttle bus and then jet-lagged and weary they had to figure out the Paris subway system.  I'm sure that most tourists would have happily accept help from a friendly local.  Anyways, live and learn.

The rest of us arrived in Paris/Beauvais airport at around 9:40pm.  I was actually able to book a private airport transfer to our apartment in Boulogne through http://www.bluvan.fr/.  I was really glad that we did, because we got door to door service for €140 for 6 people.  Our driver met us as soon as we came off the plane and we got to our apartment in around 1 hour.   By some stroke of good luck, my dad just happened to be in the lobby of the building when our Bluvan pulled up.  That was fortunate, because we actually didn't have any way of contacting my parents to let them know we had arrived.

The apartment was a nice, modern, very clean with one bathroom and two bedrooms.  There were two sofa-beds in the living room and this is where the kids slept.  We reserved through Airbnb and paid around €1000 for 6 nights.  Seeing that we were 8 people staying there, I'm not sure that we could have gotten a better deal anywhere. The hosts were very accommodating of our schedule too.  They waited for my parents to arrive in the morning and also allowed us to stay past 6pm the day we left.

Inside our Paris apartment

Viva Barça!

For Christmas I received a set of Barcelona Fútbol Club cake moulds from my friends Socorro and Americo.  On Sunday afternoon, Ciara and I decided to make a cake and I thought why not make a Barça cake since we have never used my new cake mould before.  I'm not sure what I was thinking, but decorating a cake to look like the Barça crest is really hard work!  Rylan and I made 4 different colours of icing and it took us over an hour to finish decorating the cake.  We admired our work for a while and then shared the cake with our friends.  Since we may never go to an actual Barça game, we will show our support for the home team through our cake! Here is a picture so that you can admire it too.